Last friendly blog before, well you know.

Primary Menu

Month November 2009

The other day I got the classic answer from my son. Its a classic because because well its one that we’ve all used in the past and frankly is one of the easiest ways to let people know that you heard what they said and just don’t know.

“Great question, I really don’t know the answer however.”

The funny thing for me is not that one of my kids picked that up – I use it all the time. Rather its the application of that statement to the question “do you have documentation of your current architecture?” that intrigues me.

When did we stop updating the architectural framework within organizations? As a consultant I am tied to deliverables and requirements. But I often find that those get left behind and die on someone’s desk.

Five hours of travel will do that to you on a Friday. You start thinking about everything that could be and might be and eventually you realize that you’ve fallen asleep and the entire flight was over, done, finished.

Last night I was listening to a couple of podcasts on my Zune as I flew home. Its an interesting feeling to start thinking about the world around you and then to quietly slip away from that world and fall asleep.

You also don’t remember much of the podcasts when you fall asleep. I had to listen to them again in the cab ride home to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

I guess this early on a Saturday you probably don’t think about writers block. Usually (now that the kids are older) I am sleeping in at this point.

The journey begins however with changing what you’ve done to do something new. that which we have done is oft repeated but seldom understood.

We are creatures of habit. When the kids were little I got up when they go up. When I was a school teacher I got up early to get to school and be ready for the day. Now, ideas don’t have bedtimes and I stay up later (when I can – its hard to beat 20 years of training).

But enough for today. These rambles lead no where and I’ve got places to go.

Interesting issue with Twitter right now – they do not allow you to follow more than 2000 (or a gap between following and followers). Is this a performance issue to get rid of the whales?

Personally I use my twitter feed as a newsfeed. I can find out what a large number of people are thinking about the issue of the day. There really isn’t another way to do that right now easily, so the following no more than 2000 people really impacts me.

I could understand this if it was a performance issue – but then simply tell people that it is a performance issue.

As it is, i feel bad as people follow me and I cannot return the favor. I suspect its time to get rid of the worst type of twitterati, the follow you for a day and then drop you (so they gain followers and reduce following).

I’ve talked in the past about lighthouses embedded in solutions to help prepare people for issues or problems. Another tool for developers is leaving bread crumbs in your comments that will help another developer walk through issues and bug fix your code.

Yeah I know – all code shipped it 100% bug free. But there are always bugs in the hardware or hardware/software combination that we couldn’t prepare for.

In reality it seems a simple concept (leaving bread crumbs) but we often forget the little things. In the IP/IC world having the ability to add specific break crumbs may improve the overall usability of the information.

But we forget things like that often. Except you can’t forget the bread crumbs when making good stuffing – it kind of changes everything.

Of course this has been a theme for a number of years on a number of televisions shows and movies. From Ghostbusters its my favorite line “Cats and dogs living together.” We never know what this merging of opposites will create.

Except, in the space of knowledge management (or really IP/IC management – as knowledge management is a much bigger nut). In that world you have people who need IP/IC (searching) and people who are building IP/IC (content creators). But if they are speaking even a slightly different language we are in trouble.

For example, think of all the directory standards that exist today. Kerberos, LDAP etc…the list goes on for awhile. If you build a product that speaks directory you have to speak all of these languages, but not all of the nomenclature is the same. What do you mean by synchronization?

Which is actually the neat freaks and the slobs coming together. They don’t speak the same language and so it impacts search. Personally i like to shorten directory services to Directories, but i have friends who only use DS and LDAP. If I search for directory in a KM system, I won’t find it because the neat freaks or slobs (not telling which one I am) have placed the document in with their nomenclature.

You want communication in your IP/IC system? Build a common taxonomy that allows people the freedom to express their solution while making sure the next person along can leverage that.